Smart meter protest set for Friday

Smart meters haven’t found favor with everybody, including a group that plans to protest the installation of the meters tomorrow in Austin.

The group, Ban Texas Smart Meters, wants utility customers to be able to decide if they want a smart meter and for the Public Utility Commission to make that happen.

The protesters say “consumers never had a right to choose” and had to pay additional fees for the meters that were installed by utilities operating in other cities.

“The legislature never mandated these,” said Thelma Taormina of Houston, who is organizing the protest meeting in Austin.

In San Antonio, CPS Energy has installed about 40,000 smart meters in a pilot program, and no customer contacted the utility to say they didn’t want the meter. But several people have said CPS should have an “opt out” policy, and CPS is looking into that, spokeswoman Christine Patmon said. Smart meters are being touted as two-way information system between the utility and the customer. CPS customers who have smart meters can go to a portal on the utility’s website and see, in 15-minute increments, how much power they’re using. Presumably that knowledge could help them cut their power bill.